


The Only Way

by rainydayes



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: But it's okay, French Characters, Gen, Guillotine, M/M, Murder Husbands, Timmy's a brat, because we still love him, lots of guillotines, taking down the bourgeoisie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 02:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16338167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainydayes/pseuds/rainydayes
Summary: The Chalamet family had been living in luxury for generations. But in the midst of the French Revolution, that luxury may be coming to and end for Timothée.





	The Only Way

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from. I don't know how it happened. I hope you give it a chance, maybe even enjoy it. I had a lot of fun writing it. Thanks fanficdoc.tumblr.com for letting me participate in 30 days of Fanfic!

The jail cell was sticky with the smell of rotting iron. It took Timothée a minute to realize that the smell was the bloody gash on his forehead. He had been cut when he was dragged off the street this morning. 

It took him another minute to realize that he had been inside the prison for more than a day. He counted the passing moons on his blood-stained fingers, dirt trapped under his too long fingernails. Six moons had passed if he remembered correctly in his haze of hysteria. He moved to stand only to topple over from the weight of the shackles trapping his wrists and feet. He tried again, distributing the weight of the chains more carefully. On his feet, Timothée could see the spectacle happening outside—prison guards rounding up those encaptured and carting them through parade of villagers with pitchforks in hand. The longer he looked outside, the more he began to recall the week before.

Timothée hadn’t been on the street—he had been in a carriage, the seats lined with red velvet and the windows adorned in golden tapestry. His petticoat had been freshly pressed that morning and he was wearing a new pair of buckled boots his mother had imported for him from Italy. He watched the diseased peasants gathering in the street, some of them giving sideways glances as his carriage passed. He met their looks with an apathetic gaze, resting his chin in his hand with a sigh. He wasn’t even fazed when the carriage was stopped and a tall, harried man stepped up to his window. 

“Monsieur, I’m going to have to ask you to step out, please,” the man said, bending down to meet Timothée’s face. Timothée scoffed, moving away from him. 

“Can you tell me what’s going on? I have an appointment to be getting to,” Timothée answered, his voice strained in frustration. The tall man rolled his eyes and stood up straight, seemingly calling over his associates. A few more equally disheveled men appeared behind him, their faces angry and savage. A chill ran down Timothée’s back.

The tall man bent down again, blond strands coming into view. The closer Timothée looked at him, the more he stared at the sunkiness of his lapis eyes and the deep tan from years of work. He sat up a bit straighter.

“Monsieur, you’re being arrested by the Committee of Public Safety.” Timothée burst into laughter. No such thing has ever existed in all the time he had been a proud Frenchmen. It must be one of the groups the emerging radicals had started to wreak so-called justice.

“I don’t have time for this nonsense. Alexandre, drive!” 

“Monsieur, that won’t be possible.” The man’s lips had curled into a sadistic smile. The culottes behind him held up a limp body dressed in a familiar shade of navy blue. Timothée gasped.

“This is despicable! Do you know who I am?” he screeched, gripping the velvet seat for dear life. The man nodded.

“Monsieur Chalamet of Lyon. Your family has lived in luxury for centuries. A luxury never felt by the starving farmers of the countryside. You’re the worst of them, spending all your time partying and feasting on your own gluttony.”

Timothée clenched his jaw. “It’s not my problem if those below me cannot provide for themselves. My family has worked hard for their wealth.”

The man grabbed the edge of the window and Timothée pulled back. “Your ancestors worked. You’ve never lifted a finger for work your entire life. And now you will perish for it.”

“I’ve broken no law and you’ve murdered my driver,” Timothée said coolly, pulling out his pocket watch. “And now I’m late for my appointment.”

“Your lady can wait.” The words made Timothée blush but he said nothing. “Out of the car.”

“You seem to know all about me, but I don’t know a thing about you. How can you expect me to get out and join you?” he tried evenly. He knew his stalling wouldn’t save him, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.

“Citoyen Armand. Now get out.” When Timothée didn’t move, Armand ripped the door open and dragged him out. Timothée kicked and screamed as hard as he could until he was hit in the head and he blacked out.

 

The prison door opened, a soft breeze pushing through with each aching creak of its hinges. Citizen Armand stood in the door frame hunched over, his pants smeared with something dark and no longer describable. Timothée looked up, his curls falling into his eyes. He imagined how pitiful he must’ve looked to this brute with his limbs thin and wiry, his face gaunt and pale. They fed him something that was meant to resemble broth, but he hadn’t been able to keep anything down.

“Get up. They’re taking you down to the square,” Armand said gravely, not moving an inch. Timothée shook his head, cowering against the wall opposite of the door. He closed his eyes, trying to remember his mother’s face or his sister’s laugh or his father’s voice when he used read to him. The only face he could see clearly was the boy he had planned to see the day they caught him. The boy was sitting alone on a small farm on the edge of Lyon, wondering if Timothée had finally forgotten about him or decided he wasn’t fit enough to be around such high nobility. 

Timothée sighed as he opened his eyes again, his wet cheeks causing the dirt to smear on his face and down to his neck. He looked up at Armand again who stood in the same position, his face unchanged aside from the flicker of regret that crossed his eyes.

“Up, Monsieur.” Timothée complied, walking over slowly. Armand clicked a key into the pile of chains weighing Timothée down and immediately grabbed him by the shoulder before leading him out of the cell. 

“Shouldn’t you call me Citoyen? France is already on her head,” Timothée muttered sullenly, leaning into Armand’s hold on him. Armand didn’t look down at him.

“Some things must stay as they are to maintain a sense of order.” Timothée looked up at Armand and smiled. Armand glanced down at him for a second before looking forward again, but Timothée can make out the ghost of a grin. 

The ride to the square was white noise to Timothée. He had made sure to pack himself into the center to avoid the angry crowds celebrating his coming demise. He wondered if the boy would be in the crowd. He wondered if the boy would cheer for his death, crave to see the teeth of Madame Guillotine seek the retribution for Timothée’s sins.

Timothée fell over as the carriage stopped, falling into a crowd of equally broken bodies. Guards shouted at them to get out and form themselves into a miserable line. Timothée quickly shuffled to the back, trying not to watch what was happening ahead of him. He felt a familiar, stoic presence beside and looked up. Armand continued to look straight ahead, his face unflinching at the sound of a bloodcurdling scream. 

“How can you stand it?” Armand looked down at Timothée, his face appearing to soften. Or perhaps it was Timothée’s imagination. 

“It is the only way.” Timothée scoffed, crossing his arms stubbornly. Of course a traitor of the crown would say such a thing. “You don’t think so, I assume?”

“If I did than I’d be condoning my own assassination.” Armand hummed as they both stepped forward in line.

“France has been corrupted by the classes for a long time. The proletariat die to feed the full stomachs of the bourgeoisie. We have killed off half a generation of frenchmen through poverty and starvation. Our king is a featherbrained fool and his queen is a prideful imposter. The only way to fix what is broken is to destroy it completely and then rebuild. There is no other way, unfortunately.”

“Easy for you to say, since you get to live to see this glorious new system,” Timothée grumbled. Armand stared ahead again.

“My family will not. My wife died from the white plague and my only child died from smallpox. If we had even a morsel of your wealth we could’ve gotten doctors,” he replied, his voice stony. Timothée cleared his throat awkwardly and looked ahead. He could see the body of Madame Guillotine, her teeth fearsome as they came down on a young woman’s neck. He watched her long blonde hair fly wildly at the separation and another bone-chilling scream pierced his ears. He grasped his neck and swallowed.

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t. Nobles don’t think of such things. Not until now.” Timothée nodded, looking up at Armand again. He took the arm hanging closest to him and hugged it, leaning into Armand.

“I understand. I can’t agree, but I understand. I want France to be great too. I just wish I had known. I wish I didn’t have to die to know,” Timothée said softly. 

An older man in tattered cotton was being held down at the base of the guillotine, crying out insufferably. The blade was sent flying down on his neck, cutting half way through. The screams and cries of the man made Timothée vomit as the crowd cheered in glee at the spectacle. The guards moved the blade up and down two more times before the deed was done, but the man’s screams already marred Timothée’s brain. He hunched over in agony, heaving anxiously at his quickly arriving fate.

“Get up.”

“I can’t!” Two hands grabbed Timothée by the waist and threw him over a shoulder. “You have to go. Don’t think. The more you think the worse it’ll be.”

“This is savagery! It’s barbaric! Am I not your brother?” Timothée screeched, catching glimpses of the approaching crowd. A group of guards were moving towards him to intervene but Armand gave them a look. 

“As your brother, it is my duty to deliver salvation from your sins onto France’s people.”

“Armand, please!”

“Monsieur.” The finality in his voice silenced Timothée as he was set on the ground. Madame Guillotine’s glistening teeth winked at him. He wanted to vomit. “You don’t belong here anymore. You must leave.”

Timothée looked out into the ravenous crowd, tuning out the cheers as he looked for the boy’s face. He’d almost given up until he found a familiar pair of sunken, lapis eyes staring up at him with skin tanned from work. He walked over to the base and rested his neck in the lunette. He watched Armand’s legs walk past him until he stood next to the trigger.

“Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité!” And down came her teeth.


End file.
